The piece limit for each tier will be determined by using the traditional $0.10/piece price point, which means a $5 should have around 50 parts.

You are not strictly limited to the $0.10/piece limit, but your set may not exceed more or less than 20% of each tier's piece count.

Because figs are expensive for LEGO to produce, and disproportionally increase the price of a set, 1 fig = 10 parts. This covers all weapons, armor, shields, and other accessories the fig is wearing. All other accessories and armor count as one part per piece.

Baseplates count as one part, but you may not use more than the equivelant of 2 32x32 baseplates or one 48x48 baseplate in any one set. Use your better judgement - a $5 is NOT going to have a 32x32 baseplate and it will count against you if you include one.

All 5 of your sets *MUST* be built surrounding a theme, in other words, they all must be related to each other in some obvious way. For example: each set deals with the ocean (fishing, sailing, port, etc.) or one faction is fighting another. Using the same color scheme throughout your sets does not count towards a theme (but coordination is always good).

You may choose to use any theme you wish, excepting that it falls within the Classic-Castle.com definition of castle, being anything from the medieval era, including viking and ninja, up to the introduction of crude firearms of that part of the world.

Your theme may be purely military oriented, purely civilian, or any combination of the two.

You may include as much realism or fantasy as you wish.

You may have some of your sets belonging to opposing factions (i.e. Forestmen vs. Crusaders) but all sets must include something from both factions. Please do not include more than two factions in your theme (civilians do not count towards factions).

It is not necessary that you have all 5 sets built simultaneously, but you must have a picture with either all 5 sets included or digitally altered to include them all so that the overall theme can be viewed as a whole.

Custom elements are limited to minifig and animals, stickers, and minifig and animal accessories.

LDrawn entries are welcome but do not use high numbers of rare parts. Do not use non-existant parts (as in those parts that exist only in Ldraw).

***Submit entries by replying to the forthcoming entries post. Please only post one picture in this thread and link to your offsite gallery of other images.***

***Please limit posted images in the entry thread to 400x400 pixels. Larger images may be used for greater detail, but must be only linked to offsite, and may not exceed 800x600 pixels.***

Between 1 and 3 per set plus the one pic of all 5 together would be optimal.

DARKspawn wrote:Could someone build a creator style castle set around the piece count of the ISD, Death Star or Eifel Tower sets? Or even the Milinieum Falcon?

The spirit of the contest is about creating a collection of sets that could be sold as a theme, so a UCS castle doesn't really fit that spirit. However that isn't to say you couldn't create a series of sets that combine to form a larger castle.

--Tony

Give a man a fire and he'll be warm for a day.Set a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.

I do have one real quick question: What about fig count? Will we count those as parts, etc. I'm sure you can fill us in on your ideas surrounding that.

Thanks tons! Here's hoping I have time to enter...

Good question, I knew I was forgetting something.

Because figs are expensive for LEGO to produce, and disproportionally increase the price of a set, I'm going to put a blanket rule of 1 fig = 10 parts. This covers all weapons, armor, shields, and other accessories the fig is wearing. All other accessories and armor count as one part per piece.

--Tony

Give a man a fire and he'll be warm for a day.Set a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.

I think this is a great idea for a contest, & especially as large castles will once again be frowned upon. However I think we need to have a greater clarification on the number of elements per catagory. This would help heaps & What about baseplates?

DARKspawn wrote:I think this is a great idea for a contest, & especially as large castles will once again be frowned upon. However I think we need to have a greater clarification on the number of elements per catagory. This would help heaps & What about baseplates?

Alright, alright, I'll spell it out for you.

$5 / $0.10/piece +/- 20% = 40 to 60 parts

$8 / $0.10/piece +/- 20% = 64 to 96 parts

$12 / $0.10/piece +/- 20% = 96 to 144 parts

$20 / $0.10/piece +/- 20% = 160 to 240 parts

$50 / $0.10/piece +/- 20% = 400 to 600 parts

$100 / $0.10/piece +/- 20% = 800 to 1200 parts

Since I'm not willing ot come up with some convoluted method of determining how many parts a baseplate equals compared to its dimensions, I'm going to throw y'all a bone and say that baseplates count as one part, but I'm going to limit it to no more than the equivelant of 2 32x32 baseplates or one 48x48 baseplate per set. Use your better judgement - a $5 set is NOT going to have a 32x32 baseplate, and if you choose to have one that does it will count against you.

-Tony

Give a man a fire and he'll be warm for a day.Set a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.

Is it necessary to create your own factions, or can you use existing factions in new sets? For example, can I use the new 2007 factions against each other, as long as the sets are completely different?

No. 2 32x32 baseplates would get you 64x32, or 32x64, depending on how you view the world.

Spongey wrote:Is it necessary to create your own factions, or can you use existing factions in new sets? For example, can I use the new 2007 factions against each other, as long as the sets are completely different?

You can use any of the factions LEGO has offered, from Yellow Castle knights to Castle 2007 and everything inbetween, in any combination. Just so long as it follows the max 2 factions limit.

--Tony

Give a man a fire and he'll be warm for a day.Set a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.

Lots of reading, but I appreciate the lengthy deadline- hopefully I can get started this weekend.

Regarding the presentation, the MOCs don't have to be photographed and photoshopped, Lego set style do they? I'm assuming we can just take and submit regular shots for the contest (e.g in front of a white backdrop)?